There’s a lot of hubbub and crap being spewed about not vaccinating your kids and letting measles creep back into our lives. The animation explaining shop Kurz Gesagt doesn’t want to deal with the arguments of pseudo-science, they just want to explain what measles does inside your body. And why it’s helpful for everyone to get vaccines.

28 October 2014

A team of chemists at Brigham Young University have developed a remarkably simple and cheap lab-on-a-chip test that can accurately detect markers of serious conditions like kidney disease or even prostate cancer using nothing but a drop of urine the and the perpetual pull of gravity.

9 October 2014

Along with shoe X-rays and toiletries in ziploc bags, we can now welcome fever checks as the latest addition to airport security theatre. Today, US officials announced they will screen passengers coming to five major airports from the African countries hit worst by Ebola — despite no real evidence that it will make us safer.

10 September 2014

Video: It’s hard to keep track of what could kill you these days, but if you really want to know, it’s basically everything. College Humor created this dark comedy animation bit where the Grim Reaper waxes poetic on all the things that can kill a person from A to Z. It’s a reminder to not avoid life when living.

17 August 2014

That wacky CDC is up to its old, potentially fatal-virus-spreading tricks again. But instead of anthrax or dengue, this time, the Centres for Disease Control brought a deadly strain of bird flu into its revolving cast of highly contagious characters. While rushing to get to a meeting, a CDC scientist accidentally tainted a tamer strain of bird flu with a far more deadly one — and then sent it out to another unsuspecting lab. Whoops.

22 July 2014

As it stands now, there’s no truly effective method of protecting against malaria. Vaccines are notoriously difficult to make, and it’s almost impossible to detect the infection in its early stage — until now, that is. And it’s all thanks to highly advanced, tank-fighting military hardware.

17 April 2014

Somebody’s definitely getting fired, after over 2300 vials containing fragments of the deadly SARS virus went missing from the Pasteur Institute in France earlier this week. Not one or two vials, mind you. Thousands of them.

22 March 2014

DARPA is investigating handheld UV laser devices to help soldiers detect biological and chemical weapons from a safe distance. But when they master that technology, it won’t just be used on the battlefield; it could also help public health workers detect and track outbreaks of communicable diseases. Fighting flu with lasers? This really is the future.

29 January 2014

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the Bubonic plague, but the chances of you knowing next to anything about the Justinian plague are significantly slimmer. That’s because no one really knew anything about the Justinian plague — until recently, that is. Now, two ancient, plague-ridden teeth are finally teaching us a little more about one of the worst pandemics in history — including the fact that another outbreak could be just around the corner.

4 September 2013

The tragedy of Parkinson’s, which progressively robs patients of their physical abilities, is that while certain drugs, therapies and devices can restore some quality of life, so far we haven’t found a way to stop brain cells from dying. Now, researchers in the UK and Norway have found a drug that could keep brain cells functioning normally — and it’s been used to treat liver disease for years.